With Spring/Summer 16, Andrea Pompilio delivers the 10th collection with his own brand and celebrates its first 5 years, an intense crescendo of challenges and achievements. Surrendering to a retrospective impetus, the designer has decided to mark this turning point with a spontaneous and instinctive collection. A sincere, heartfelt and distinctly personal statement, which aims to honor his design identity and creative roots.

The signature elements of Andrea Pompilio’s DNA are key to the whole collection. Unexpected colours, the bold mix-and-match of prints and patterns, horizontal stripes and checks; the ingredients are carefully blended to create a fascinating ‘harmonious chaos’.

This ‘weighted disorder’ is the natural habitat of Andrea Pompilio’s man: intellectual, elegant, an artist. Eclectic in playing with textures, lines and color, embracing contrasts which reflect the complexity of his soul. He exalts the delicacy of fabrics such as silk and crèp marocain: boxy shirts with contrasting collars, loose pants, t-shirts and tank tops with wide necklines and oversize parkas in iridescent tones. Still, he breaks their fluidity with the strict forms of cotton overcoats, leather biker jackets and tailored jackets with waffle textures.

He falls in love with sophisticated prints, a shower of small petals and an Oriental-flavoured revisited ‘camouflage’, but pairs them with the pragmatism of checks and horizontal stripes. His accessories combine conflicting shapes, essential sneakers with big gardening boots and oversized bucket bags. The extravagance of these matches describes his personality; a man who can effortlessly combine an acetate tracksuit with a silk scarf, just as he can harmonize contrasting feelings in everyday life.

Spring/Summer 16′s mood is indeed dominated by an overwhelming and ‘contradictory’ romanticism, which marks the collection with its constant duality: a nostalgic feeling that interchanges with a more irreverent and light-hearted one. The coming and going of such waves of pathos reflects the swing of emotions of each individual, oscillating between the bitterness of unfulfilled hopes and the sweetness of dreams to follow.

‘Love Me Forever or Never’ is the categorical imperative embroidered on shirts, T-shirts, tank-tops and outerwear, a sentimental request which embodies both passion and melancholy, but which retains a taste of irony in its graphic composition. A palette of soft, pastel colors pale pink, nude, lilac, baby blue is broken up by darker tones night blue, rust, olive but also by an intense lemon yellow, which demonstrates the sensibility for striking colours typical of Andrea’s aesthetic.

A military influence melded with the great tradition of Italian tailoring is the driving underlying signature of Andrea Pompilio’s design sensibility. Taking a new direction this season, they are overlaid by an unprecedented dark, austere mood.

Essential cuts and minimal graphic details characterize indeed the wardrobe of the FW 2015/2016’s man. A sophisticated aviator, he transcends historical references through a contemporary interpretation of his own identity.

Pieces standout via a high impact solid palette of navy blue, denim, white and grey, softened by hues of mint, egg and camel, and energized by bright shades of lollipop pink, scarlet red and acid yellow.

Extraordinary detail and texture structures the outerwear. Striking double collars in contrast fabrics feature on oversized single-breasted and double- breasted coats, their silhouettes broken up by high-waisted belts. Shearlings in traditional aviator styles are constructed from mixed materials and shades. A luxurious fake fur in smoke grey alpaca is washed to a fuzzy finish, while rippled leather resembling elephant skin is bonded with wool cashmere jersey in another coat.

Underscoring precise cuts, a ribbon band is inset on coat and jacket’s backs, to follow the curve of the shoulders, and is revealed on the side of jacket sleeves and pant legs. Constructed from contrast fabric or white rubber coating, it outlines the profile, to reiterate the silhouette. Chenille badges, recalling air force decoration, highlight poplin shirts, knits and sweatshirts.

Modern Italian tailoring includes two button and three button fit jackets, paired with roomy straight-legged pants.
Tuxedos in rich forest green and burgundy silk mix modern and refined elements: the handmade jacket’s sleeve cuffs are turned over like an elegant dressing gown, and the pants have an elasticated waist, like boxer’s shorts. The look is worn with striped black-and-white sneakers – a reference to American sportswear.

Accessories highlight both graphic accents and the air force influence: long gloves with contrast pop-colored shearling stripes are layered on bomber jackets and shirts, while huge padded hoods, recalling those seen on parachutist uniforms, top cotton sweatshirts. Simple sacs in shaved calfskin, pony skin and nappa, marked with AP initials, are the final touch to some looks, while a classic derby is constructed in a trekking shoe style, with leather and Velcro neoprene straps.

He’s a rebel, the son of bourgeois parents, looking to make his mark on the world. Into their wardrobe he goes, ready to change up the elegant Italian tailoring and designer labels inside. He converts the classic shapes into a lineup that’s more his style.

Bold accents from his punk world contort their dress codes. He puts an oversized eyelet, like a stretched ear lobe piercing and brands it onto sartorial pieces, using it to perforate shirts and trench coats. He applies studs allover shirt collars.

He considers the monogrammed shirt, the status symbol of the Italian bourgeois man, and does his own version, putting macro chenille letters, as found on college jackets, onto T-shirts.

He dresses by merging the clashing style and attitudes of two generations in layers with sandals like those he’d wear to the pool. The detail-rich look creates Andrea Pompilio Men’s Spring Summer 2015 collection.

Layered and constructed with differing lengths, the silhouette has movement in profile. Poplin shirt hems are trimmed with a plisse skirt of fabric, like a punk’s kilt. Sweatshirts are layered on top, some embellished with three-dimensional tonal burnt and hammered paillettes.

A pair of large front pleats on the pants gives extra volume to their carrot form, with an elongated tab that closes at the hip; while drawstring baggy shorts with a back pocket are classic street wear.

A narrow shouldered single or double-breasted jacket cut from crisp cotton or linen is a graphic final piece. The jacket closes with a strip of fabric across one side of the waist, a design detail taken from an old military uniform.

A palette of nudes soften the layers; tones of flesh, sand and beige are worn together or mixed with pastel yellow, pop yellow, sky blue, robin’s egg blue, Bordeaux and cherry.

A contrasting colored fabric strip runs over the shoulders and down the tops of the sleeves of a trench. Appearing like an aura, the stripe outlines the profile of the coat in traditional technical textile or an ultra dry-handed taut Japanese cotton.

Tailoring is worn with accessories designed to debase its formality. Ribbed socks cut off at the toes are paired with leather sandals with serrated thick rubber soles. Pliable leather totes rolled at the top resemble classic shopping bags.

Sporty outerwear shows cool indifference. A boxy K-way with scuba style zippers features a large eyelet on its hood, and a jacket is trimmed with rubberized hook and eye closures.

The collection’s irreverent mood is captured in sunglasses that look like two disparate models cut in half and molded together, with oversized lenses and a fine wire bridge.

At its third season, the Onitsuka Tiger X Andrea Pompilio represents the perfect union between the sportswear heritage of the Japanese brand and the Italian creativity of Andrea Pompilio.

For the SS2014 the designer took inspiration from the musicians, artists and break-dancers that enliven the streets of the most underground neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

The prints, Andrea Pompilio’s signature feature, blend together with Onitsuka Tiger’s Collection in a kaleidoscope of computerized, sprayed and tattooed graphics that recall the artworks of urban writers.

The tiger, icon of the Japanese brand, keeps being reinterpreted as if it was free to express all its strength, and applied to outerwear, sweatshirts, trousers, shorts and t-shirts.

For the first time, a capsule collection for women is added to the traditional men’s line, maintaining its strong street style personality.

The colors recall the freshness of California, with clear references to Downtown L.A.’s graffitis.

The accessories line of backpacks, caps and visors has a touch of the original Los Angeles ’80s Hip Hop style revisited with a contemporary vision.